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Mud. Now there’s a name to conjure with. It’s only a few days since I was writing about another band from the Chinn / Chapman stable of the Seventies and now surprisingly I get to turn my attention to a second. I say surprisingly because Mud (in this format) have only played a handful gigs since their heyday. For the band this evening are led by original members, Rob Davis on lead guitar and Ray Stiles on bass and vocals.

How can you go wrong with “A Christmas Carol” at Christmastime? The most famous of Charles Dickens’ five major Christmas novellas, well-loved by the nation and the Western world at large. Well, somehow the RSC have managed to make a mess of it all.

This Christmas was Ravenscourt Arts’ 4th annual Christmas production and its most difficult to organise – simply because it was put into the theatre’s calendar very late and, because of that late organisation, then trying fill up the house for a free show for children when schools had so much already organised proved rather difficult, meaning a half full house. This for a show that deserved so much more but fortunately a heart-full of humour made this production a huge success.

Well, okay, it is a rather predictable title for a Doobie Brothers live review but I’m not going to be too hard on my self. After all, the Doobie Brothers are still, after all these years, most definitely rocking and they are on their way around Europe again so there is some travelling to be done.

The last time I saw the Doobie Brothers was on the very same night (29th October) 7 years ago, when they visited my home neighbourhood of Hammersmith. Tonight, it is a bigger show and they share billing with Steely Dan which was in my estimation a sublime coupling and I wasn’t wrong in my estimate.

The Yankees’ pitching has been amazing in 2017. Every time someone under-performed, someone else stepped up to fill the gap. When Aroldis Chapman lost his way, it just happened that Dellin Betances was on form. When Betances struggled, Chapman regained his form. Adam Warren injured? Chad Green pitches phenomenally to fill the gap. Masahiro Tanaka not quite up to the ace billing? Then here’s Severino doing everything as a starter he couldn’t do in 2016 and CC Sabathia doing more than his aging limbs should allow. Let’s look at the whole picture

Coriolanus is, in its full form, the second longest play in Shakespeare’s canon. Performed in its entirety it would take up four hours or more of your life. Here at the RSC, it takes 2 hours and forty minutes – three hours if you include the break in the middle for ice cream.

The New York Yankees were sensational with their bats during September – especially Jacoby Ellsbury who was so consistent and Aaron Judge who having struggled with his mechanics since the All-Star break suddenly bounced back with immense power. Let’s look at how the whole line-up performed: